Battle is a re-imagining of FPS multiplayer into an arcade like experience. Strategy and reflexes are more important than aiming precision plus a limited variety of weapons keeps the playing field level. Fundamentally it's a shooter unlike anything you've played before.

The Basics

Each player plays as an advanced artificial intelligence, remotely piloting a robotic soldier. This soldier, called a "Ranger," is fast, deadly, and cube shaped.

This cube however is only half the Ranger's volume. The other half is an invisible energy field.

Since this upper half is non physical, bullets and shots freely travel through it. Rangers and other energy fields are kept out.

First and Third Person Shooter Rangers shoot and see from their invisible upper half, effectively making the camera third person. Players can hide behind cover while shooting, look around corners without showing their presence, and see their own body.

Spawning Rangers are remote controlled and need pilots to function. When an active Ranger is destroyed, the player assumes control of a new inactive Ranger.

Spawn rooms contain a large amount of inactive Rangers, placed in a ring along the walls. There is no visual distinction between an active and inactive Ranger. If an enemy player is in the spawn room, it's impossible for them to tell which Rangers are empty and which are real players. Freshly spawned players have the element of surprise, but give away their status as an active Ranger once they move or shoot.

This makes "spawn camping" a balanced fight, not a one sided exploit of the game mechanics.

Health Every Ranger has a finite amount of health, with no healing or health packs. The Ranger's health status is depicted as the brightness of their outlines. Solid white and the Ranger is at full health. Near black and the Ranger is almost dead. The player knows their enemy's health by looking at their Ranger. The player knows their own health by looking down and seeing their Ranger's body.

Platforming

Battle maps are intricate and tall, while Rangers are fast and mobile. Skilled players can traverse very quickly.

Power-ups When an active Ranger is destroyed, they leave behind a small power-up.

Collecting this power-up increases the player's jump strength. Specifically one power-up equals an additional mid-air jump for the rest of the match. Players start with zero air jumps, thus confining them to the starting area of the map. Each power-up they collect naturally increases the areas they can reach. Rangers may alternatively down jump when using a mid-air jump. This quickly shoots the player to the ground.

Green Surfaces outlined in green have unique properties. Landing on one bounces the player back into the air. Green walls pull the Ranger upwards. Green ceilings hold the player, stopping them from falling back to the ground.

Red All red surfaces act the same. Touching one temporarily disables jumping. Landing on a white or green floor ends this effect and re-enables jumping. Being destroyed also re-enables jumping.

Blue Blue floors/ceilings allow one way travel. Floors block the player and do nothing, while blue ceilings can be freely jumped through. Touching a blue wall rotates the entire world, so that the wall is now a floor. As a result the player can freely move around on walls and ceilings.

This change does not affect other Rangers. If two Rangers have opposite orientations, it's possible for them to jump onto each other and float as a team. Each Ranger's relative gravity counteracts the other. Large floating formations can be created out of multiple Rangers, capable of moving through entire maps without touching the ground.

Shooting

Rangers have four weapons available at all times, each with unlimited ammo. These weapon-blocks are formed in the Ranger's upper energy field. Once fully charged, the weapon-block is ready to be fired.

Weapon-blocks have their own health, and can be destroyed by enemy attacks. This makes the weapon-block explode and damage nearby players.

White Shoots a large short range burst plus a centralized mid range shot. It acts like a shotgun and pistol overlaid into a single weapon. Charges at medium speed and has the highest health of any weapon-block.

Green Weapon-block that fires a continuous stream of shots. Once started, the fire cannot stop until the weapon-block is depleted. Is slow at charging but has a high amount of health.

Red The most powerful weapon in the game. Shoots a bomb that detonates a few feet from impact, destroying every Ranger in the area. Takes the longest time to charge, and has average health.

Blue While charged/charging, the blue weapon-block projects a small blue portal wherever the player looks. This is like a laser site, except it goes through Rangers and power-ups. When fired, the weapon shoots backwards from the portal and directly towards the player. If there is a Ranger or power-up between the two, the shot hits that object and does damage. Otherwise it flies back and kills the player who shot it. Blue weapon-blocks charge very quickly and have practically no health.

Strategy

Every Battle game mode has unique rules and goals, but these select strategies highlight some of the more interesting aspects of VizionEck's gameplay.

"Ghosting" A Ranger's health is depicted as the brightness of its white outlines. When the Ranger is on the brink of death, these outlines are dark and blend in with the black background.

There is a Ranger hidden in this picture.

Since players can look down and see their own bodies, it's also possible for players to look down and shoot their own bodies. Ghosting is the technique of purposely getting on the brink of death, so that they become practically invisible.

"Airships" Rangers can use blue surfaces to change gravity and float as a team. Large formations can be built, with nearly infinite configurations. Some teams may make a shape similar to power-ups so that every direction is watched. Others may make a tight group protected by white weapon-blocks on the outside. This technique works best on larger maps.

"Blindfire" Blue weapon-blocks shoot from the portal, not the Ranger. Players can look down and shoot enemies through their body. Only if the player misses does the shot come back and hit them. However it hits their body and not their weapon-block, so the Ranger is damaged but not destroyed.

"Floor Hugging" Except for blindfire, Rangers cannot shoot directly beneath them. They also cannot see beneath them, and weapon-blocks only act as shields for the top. This all results in Rangers being most vulnerable on their bottom. Staying on the ground better protects the player's bottom side while also giving the player a better vantage point against enemies.

Modes

VizionEck has over 100 Battle game types. Deathmatch, capture the flag, king of the hill, juggernaut, survival, no reloads, one hit kills, and VIP only scratch the surface of what's available. Here's a sampling of some a few of them.

Tournament The game starts as a 8v8 team deathmatch. Players work as teams to kill the enemy and survive. At the 5 minute mark though, things get a shake up. The losing team is eliminated from the game: their players die instantly. The remaining team of 8 is randomly reorganized into two new teams of 4 without respawning. Players change colors and are suddenly fighting their previous teammates. After another 3 minutes, another shakeup occurs. The losing team is eliminated and the winning team is redivided into 2v2. After 1 minute it becomes a 1v1 sudden death. Last player standing wins.

Blockade 4v4v4v4 battle fighting to reach a team score of 100. Once the first team passes 100, a respawn lock is placed on the lowest scoring team. Kill all 4 members and the team is eliminated. However if the team fights well and overtakes another team in score, then the respawn lock is passed on to the new last place team. Once a second team passes 100, a respawn lock is placed on the second lowest scoring team. This pattern repeats until only one team is remaining.

Duel A 1v1 mode placing two players head to head. Each player spawns on opposite walls with pre-charged white weapon-blocks. First player to kill wins the round.

Warfield Two teams, each with two human players and six computer controlled players. Bots have double health but no respawns. Fight till the enemy team has zero bots remaining.

Dreadnaught One random player has massive stat advantages against the 3 others. The dreadnaught has 10 times the health, 2 times the speed, and 2 times the attack compared to a regular player. Any self inflicted damage though and the dreadnaught is destroyed, giving every other player a kill point.

Colors Standard deathmatch, except each kill needs to be done with a different color attack-block. First kill with white, second kill with green, third kill with red, fourth kill with blue, fifth with white, etc. Attack-blocks of the wrong color may still be fired, but they do zero damage.

Timed Attack Free for all, with every player having a personal timer. They have 90 seconds to get a kill. If they fail, they are eliminated. If they succeed, their timer resets to 80 seconds. Then if they succeed again, the timer is reset to 70 seconds. Then 60 seconds, 50 seconds, 40 seconds, etc. Players need to make a kill every timer round, but it's advantageous to make it as late as possible. The last remaining player wins.

Team Killstreak 4v4 match battling for the best killstreaks. Each team's player's top killstreaks combined make up the team score.

Spy 5v3 no respawns, with one member on the 5 person team being a secret agent. This team has two ways to win. They can discover who the secret agent is and kill them, or they can kill the three enemy players. The other team, the secret agent and the three players, need to kill all four enemy players to win.